There Are Jews In My House

Author : Lara Vapnyar
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0307429695
Total Pages : 94 pages
Book Rating : 4.98/5 ( download)

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Download or read book There Are Jews in My House written by Lara Vapnyar and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2007-12-18 with total page 94 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: There Are Jews in My House is one of the most striking debuts of recent years. Tracing the lives and aspirations of Russians living in Moscow and Brooklyn, these poignant, sad and funny stories create a luminous new literary world. In the title story, set during the Second World War, Galina, a gentile, offers refuge to a Jewish friend and her daughter, only to find herself increasingly resentful of their presence in her home. In “Mistress,” a nine-year-old boy, new to America, escorts his grandmother to her weekly doctors’ appointments to interpret her myriad complaints. At the same time, he becomes aware that his grandfather may be involved with another woman. And in “Love Lessons–Mondays, 9 A.M.” a young math teacher assigned to teach a sex education class becomes all too aware that her students are more experienced than she is.

Author : Dara Horn
Publisher : W. W. Norton & Company
ISBN 13 : 0393531570
Total Pages : 272 pages
Book Rating : 4.72/5 ( download)

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Download or read book People Love Dead Jews: Reports from a Haunted Present written by Dara Horn and published by W. W. Norton & Company. This book was released on 2021-09-07 with total page 272 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2021 National Jewish Book Award for Con­tem­po­rary Jew­ish Life and Prac­tice Finalist for the 2021 Kirkus Prize in Nonfiction A New York Times Notable Book of the Year A Wall Street Journal, Chicago Public Library, Publishers Weekly, and Kirkus Reviews Best Book of the Year A startling and profound exploration of how Jewish history is exploited to comfort the living. Renowned and beloved as a prizewinning novelist, Dara Horn has also been publishing penetrating essays since she was a teenager. Often asked by major publications to write on subjects related to Jewish culture—and increasingly in response to a recent wave of deadly antisemitic attacks—Horn was troubled to realize what all of these assignments had in common: she was being asked to write about dead Jews, never about living ones. In these essays, Horn reflects on subjects as far-flung as the international veneration of Anne Frank, the mythology that Jewish family names were changed at Ellis Island, the blockbuster traveling exhibition Auschwitz, the marketing of the Jewish history of Harbin, China, and the little-known life of the "righteous Gentile" Varian Fry. Throughout, she challenges us to confront the reasons why there might be so much fascination with Jewish deaths, and so little respect for Jewish lives unfolding in the present. Horn draws upon her travels, her research, and also her own family life—trying to explain Shakespeare’s Shylock to a curious ten-year-old, her anger when swastikas are drawn on desks in her children’s school, the profound perspective offered by traditional religious practice and study—to assert the vitality, complexity, and depth of Jewish life against an antisemitism that, far from being disarmed by the mantra of "Never forget," is on the rise. As Horn explores the (not so) shocking attacks on the American Jewish community in recent years, she reveals the subtler dehumanization built into the public piety that surrounds the Jewish past—making the radical argument that the benign reverence we give to past horrors is itself a profound affront to human dignity.

Author : Azriela Jaffe
Publisher : Schocken
ISBN 13 : 0307493032
Total Pages : 207 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book What Do You Mean, You Can't Eat in My Home? written by Azriela Jaffe and published by Schocken. This book was released on 2010-03-31 with total page 207 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Here is a book of workable, sensible solutions to the everyday problems faced by newly observant Jews as they try to explain the parameters of their new lives to the people who love them—but think they’ve gone around the bend. For the formerly nonobservant Jew who has decided to live an observant life, the most daunting task can be dealing with less-observant loved ones. How can you explain to them what you now feel and believe? How can you continue to be part of the lives of your parents, your siblings and their families, and your in-laws, given how differently you now live your life? In this book, Azriela Jaffe—the observant daughter of less-observant parents—answers these and other pressing questions. Jaffe discusses how to eat kosher and observe the Sabbath and Jewish holidays in the home of a non-observant relative, and how to host nonobservant relatives in your own home; how to explain the laws of modesty and courtship practices; how to attend family life-cycle events—or explain why you sometimes can’t; and how to help your relatives understand the decision to put secular education temporarily aside to attend yeshivah and further your knowledge of Jewish law, rituals, and customs. Eminently insightful, helpful, and readable, What Do You Mean, You Can’t Eat in My Home? will be an invaluable tool in the lives of an ever-increasing number of Jewish families.

Author : Mary Morris
Publisher : Anchor
ISBN 13 : 0525434992
Total Pages : 354 pages
Book Rating : 4.93/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Gateway to the Moon written by Mary Morris and published by Anchor. This book was released on 2019-03-12 with total page 354 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: In 1492, two history-altering events occurred: the Jews and Muslims of Spain were expelled, and Columbus set sail for the New World. Many Spanish Jews chose not to flee and instead became Christian in name only, maintaining their religious traditions in secret. Among them was Luis de Torres, who accompanied Columbus as an interpreter. Over the centuries, de Torres’ descendants traveled across North America, finally settling in the hills of New Mexico. Now, some five hundred years later, it is in these same hills that Miguel Torres, a young amateur astronomer, finds himself trying to understand the mystery that surrounds him and the town he grew up in: Entrada de la Luna, or Gateway to the Moon. Poor health and poverty are the norm in Entrada, and luck is rare. So when Miguel sees an ad for a babysitting job in Santa Fe, he jumps at the opportunity. The family for whom he works, the Rothsteins, are Jewish, and Miguel is surprised to find many of their customs similar to those his own family kept but never understood. Braided throughout the present-day narrative are the powerful stories of the ancestors of Entrada’s residents, portraying both the horrors of the Inquisition and the resilience of families. Moving and unforgettable, Gateway to the Moon beautifully weaves the journeys of the converso Jews into the larger American story.

Author : Blu Greenberg
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1439147604
Total Pages : 532 pages
Book Rating : 4.03/5 ( download)

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Download or read book How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household written by Blu Greenberg and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2011-03-01 with total page 532 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Filled with practical advice as well as history, Blu Greenberg's book is a comprehensive guide to the joys and complexities of running a modern Jewish home. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household is a modern, comprehensive guide covering virtually every aspect of Jewish home life. It provides practical advice on how to manage a Jewish home in the traditional way and offers fascinating accounts of the history behind the tradition. In a warm, personal style, Blu Greenberg shows that, contrary to popular belief, the home, and not the synagogue, is the most important institution in Jewish life. Divided into three large sections—"The Jewish Way," "Special Stages of Life," and "Celebration and Remembering"—this book educates the uninitiated and reminds the already observant Jew of how Judaism approaches daily life. Topics include prayer, dress, holidays, food preparation, marriage, birth, death, parenthood, and many others. This description of the modern-yet-traditional Jewish household will earn special regard among the many American Jews who are re-exploring their ties to Jewish tradition. Such Jews will find this book a flexible guide that provides a knowledge of the requirements of traditional Judaism without advocating immediate and complete compliance. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household will also appeal to observant Jews, providing them with helpful tips on how to manage their homes and special insights into the most minute details and procedures in a traditional household. Herself a traditional Jew, Blu Greenberg is nevertheless quite sympathetic to feminist views on the role of women in Jewish observance. How to Run a Traditional Jewish Household therefore speaks intimately to women who are struggling to reconcile their identities as modern women with their commitments to traditional Judaism.

Author : Josh Lambert
Publisher : NYU Press
ISBN 13 : 1479876437
Total Pages : 278 pages
Book Rating : 4.33/5 ( download)

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Download or read book Unclean Lips written by Josh Lambert and published by NYU Press. This book was released on 2014 with total page 278 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: Winner of the 2014 Jordan Schnitzer Book Award presented by the Association for Jewish Studies Jews have played an integral role in the history of obscenity in America. For most of the 20th century, Jewish entrepreneurs and editors led the charge against obscenity laws. Jewish lawyers battled literary censorship even when their non-Jewish counterparts refused to do so, and they won court decisions in favor of texts including Ulysses, A Howl, Lady Chatterley’s Lover, and Tropic of Cancer. Jewish literary critics have provided some of the most influential courtroom testimony on behalf of freedom of expression. The anti-Semitic stereotype of the lascivious Jew has made many historians hesitant to draw a direct link between Jewishness and obscenity. In Unclean Lips, Josh Lambert addresses the Jewishness of participants in obscenity controversies in the U.S. directly, exploring the transformative roles played by a host of neglected figures in the development of modern and postmodern American culture. The diversity of American Jewry means that there is no single explanation for Jews' interventions in this field. Rejecting generalizations, this book offers case studies that pair cultural histories with close readings of both contested texts and trial transcripts to reveal the ways in which specific engagements with obscenity mattered to particular American Jews at discrete historical moments. Reading American culture from Theodore Dreiser and Henry Miller to Curb Your Enthusiasm and FCC v. Fox, Unclean Lips analyzes the variable historical and cultural factors that account for the central role Jews have played in the struggles over obscenity and censorship in the modern United States.

Author : Daniel B. Syme
Publisher : Urj Press
ISBN 13 : 9780807408513
Total Pages : 0 pages
Book Rating : 4.14/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Jewish Home written by Daniel B. Syme and published by Urj Press. This book was released on 2003 with total page 0 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: The Jewish Home explains many of the ?whys? of major Jewish holidays and life-cycle events. The birth of a child, the weeding ceremony, b?nei mitzvah, and Shabbat are only a few of the topics discussed in this work. Readers are provided with Jewish rituals and practices, their symbolism, and their historical and cultural roots. Rabbi Daniel Syme has revised this edition to reflect the changes in Reform Judaism and Jewish life that have occurred since its first publication 15 years ago. He presents clear explanations of traditional and contemporary practices in an easy-to-follow question-and-answer format.

Author : Sasha Abramsky
Publisher : New York Review of Books
ISBN 13 : 1681371138
Total Pages : 377 pages
Book Rating : 4.39/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The House of Twenty Thousand Books written by Sasha Abramsky and published by New York Review of Books. This book was released on 2017-03-28 with total page 377 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: A tender and compellling memoir of the author's grandparents, their literary salon, and a way of life that is no more. The House of Twenty Thousand Books is the story of Chimen Abramsky, an extraordinary polymath and bibliophile who amassed a vast collection of socialist literature and Jewish history. For more than fifty years Chimen and his wife, Miriam, hosted epic gatherings in their house of books that brought together many of the age’s greatest thinkers. The atheist son of one of the century’s most important rabbis, Chimen was born in 1916 near Minsk, spent his early teenage years in Moscow while his father served time in a Siberian labor camp for religious proselytizing, and then immigrated to London, where he discovered the writings of Karl Marx and became involved in left-wing politics. He briefly attended the newly established Hebrew University in Jerusalem, until World War II interrupted his studies. Back in England, he married, and for many years he and Miriam ran a respected Jewish bookshop in London’s East End. When the Nazis invaded Russia in June 1941, Chimen joined the Communist Party, becoming a leading figure in the party’s National Jewish Committee. He remained a member until 1958, when, shockingly late in the day, he finally acknowledged the atrocities committed by Stalin. In middle age, Chimen reinvented himself once more, this time as a liberal thinker, humanist, professor, and manuscripts’ expert for Sotheby’s auction house. Journalist Sasha Abramsky re-creates here a lost world, bringing to life the people, the books, and the ideas that filled his grandparents’ house, from gatherings that included Eric Hobsbawm and Isaiah Berlin to books with Marx’s handwritten notes, William Morris manuscripts and woodcuts, an early sixteenth-century Bomberg Bible, and a first edition of Descartes’s Meditations. The House of Twenty Thousand Books is a wondrous journey through our times, from the vanished worlds of Eastern European Jewry to the cacophonous politics of modernity. The House of Twenty Thousand Books includes 43 photos.

Author : Emuna Elon
Publisher : Simon and Schuster
ISBN 13 : 1982130245
Total Pages : 336 pages
Book Rating : 4.44/5 ( download)

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Download or read book House on Endless Waters written by Emuna Elon and published by Simon and Schuster. This book was released on 2020-01-07 with total page 336 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: “Elon powerfully evokes the obscurity of the past and its hold on the present as we stumble through revelation after revelation with Yoel. As we accompany him on his journey…we share in his loss, surprise, and grief, right up to the novel’s shocking conclusion.” —The New York Times Book Review In the tradition of The Invisible Bridge and The Weight of Ink, “a vibrant, page-turning family mystery” (Jennifer Cody Epstein, author of Wunderland) about a writer who discovers the truth about his mother’s wartime years in Amsterdam, unearthing a shocking secret that becomes the subject of his magnum opus. Renowned author Yoel Blum reluctantly agrees to visit his birthplace of Amsterdam to promote his books, despite promising his late mother that he would never return to that city. While touring the Jewish Historical Museum with his wife, Yoel stumbles upon footage portraying prewar Dutch Jewry and is astonished to see the youthful face of his beloved mother staring back at him, posing with his father, his older sister…and an infant he doesn’t recognize. This unsettling discovery launches him into a fervent search for the truth, shining a light on Amsterdam’s dark wartime history—the underground networks that hid Jewish children away from danger and those who betrayed their own for the sake of survival. The deeper into the past Yoel digs up, the better he understands his mother’s silence, and the more urgent the question that has unconsciously haunted him for a lifetime—Who am I?—becomes. Part family mystery, part wartime drama, House on Endless Waters is “a rewarding meditation on survival” (Kirkus Reviews, starred review) and a “deeply immersive achievement that brings to life stories that must never be forgotten” (USA TODAY).

Author : Emily Barton
Publisher :
ISBN 13 : 1101904097
Total Pages : 434 pages
Book Rating : 4.91/5 ( download)

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Download or read book The Book of Esther written by Emily Barton and published by . This book was released on 2016 with total page 434 pages. Available in PDF, EPUB and Kindle. Book excerpt: "In a counterfactual world resembling the 1930s, the state of Khazaria, an isolated nation of warriors Jews, is under attack by the Germanii. Esther, the precocious daughter of Khazaria's chief policy advisor, sets out on a quest to ensure the survival of her homeland"--